WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY! Sportsmail looks at the worst transfers in Premier League history…

With Leeds United aiming to take their total spend for Jean-Kevin Augustin to £40m in exchange for just 48 minutes of service, the striker must now be the worst signing in English football history.

Augustin made just three substitute appearances for Leeds in 2020, after which the club argued their commitment to buy the player from Red Bull Leipzig had been voided by the Covid-19 pandemic, delaying the end of the season.

However, Leeds lost their case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and later reached a £15.5 million settlement with Leipzig. The legal disputes didn’t stop there and this week they have been ordered by a FIFA panel to pay Augustin £24.5 million for breach of contract. Leeds is planning an appeal.

Here, Sports mail takes a look at the Premier League’s 10 worst signings in terms of players who barely played for the buying club… (Note: Up to five Premier League starts).

10. Arthur Melo – (0 PL starts, 0 sub-apps. £4m loan, Liverpool from Juventus, 2022-)

It’s likely we’ll never see the Brazilian in the Premier League with Liverpool poised to send him back to Juventus after playing just 13 minutes of a Champions League draw. The Reds desperately needed reinforcements in midfield, and they certainly signed a bad one here. Arthur underwent thigh surgery in October but had failed to impress until then, even playing 63 minutes against Rochdale in the Papa Johns Trophy. To think he once played for Barcelona and Brazil before moving to Juventus for £65 million. Another loan deal beckons, for any club naive enough to take it on.

9) Stephane Guivarc’h – (2 PL starts 2 sub-apps. £3.5m. Newcastle from Auxerre. 1998)

He arrived as World Cup champion after winning back-to-back gold boots in France, but didn’t play a minute for the man who signed him, Kenny Dalglish. By the time Guivarc’h was fit, Ruud Gullit was manager. He did score on his debut against Liverpool in a 4–1 defeat, but that was his only goal and by November he had been sold to Rangers as he insisted on an escape clause in his contract given his nightmarish experience at Newcastle. Gullit just didn’t feel like him. That said, he didn’t judge Alan Shearer either.

8) Dele Alli – (1 PL starts, 12 subs apps. Free. Everton from Tottenham. 2022-present)

There was reluctance to include the 27-year-old as he is still an Everton player and could still prove to be a good signing. That’s when we realized how flawed that theory is – because Alli looks like a footballer at any level let alone the Premier League. It’s safe to assume that the £40 million in add-ons Everton have to pay the Spurs will never leave their bank account. The problem they have is that his contract has another year to run and, after returning injured this week from a disastrous loan spell in Turkey, don’t be surprised to see talks about a mutual termination starting.

Dele Alli has returned to Everton after his disastrous loan spell in Turkey came to an end

7) Milton Nunez – 0 PL starts, 1 sub apps. £1.6 million. Sunderland from PAOK. 2000-2001)

There was a lot of excitement as the Honduran striker was paraded onto the pitch and performed a boxing routine, a nod to his ‘Tyson’ nickname. Peter Reid said, “He’s got something I thought we were missing, that little bit of extra speed up front.” The boss of the Black Cats had his man. Or did he? It turns out they signed the wrong player. In fact, Sunderland wanted Colombian attacker Adolfo Valencia, who also played for the Greek PAOK. It all ended in legal action with claims that Nunez was owned by a Uruguayan club at the time of his move. Sunderland believed they had been tricked all along. Over two seasons, he played just 15 minutes of Premier League football. Still, he at least won cult hero status for the shadow boxing act, if nothing else.

6) Savio – (1 PL start, 9 sub-apps. £9m. West Ham from Brescia. 2009.)

With Craig Bellamy joining Manchester City for £14 million, it took West Ham a week to reinvest a club record £9 million in Savio, an unknown 19-year-old who had scored just three times for Brescia from the Serie B. That was three more than he would ever do for the Hammers and after six months and the club having realized their mistake, he was sold to Fiorentina at a significant loss. He would not score a league goal for any club until 2014 when he scored on his debut for FC Atyrau of Kazakhstan. In the midst of it all, he was jailed in Thailand for a short period of time after allegedly faking his own kidnapping to get a ransom from his family.

Savio made just one Premier League start for West Ham despite signing a club record

5) Davy Klaassen – 3 PL starts, 4 subapps. £23.6 million. Everton from Ajax. 2017-18)

The midfielder was contracted for high costs by his Dutch compatriot Ronald Koeman. However, he was sacked in October and later admitted he was “disappointed” with Klaassen, who was struggling with the Premier League’s “aggressiveness and pace”. Koeman had already taken him out of the selection when he was fired. The Liverpool Echo recently ranked Klaassen as Everton’s worst signing since 2010, and there is fierce competition in that area.

4) Winston Bogarde – 2 PL starts, 7 sub apps. Free. Chelsea from Barcelona. 2000-2004)

If a player’s legacy is the next quote, you know the transfer didn’t work out, at least not for the club. “This world revolves around money, so when you’re offered those millions, you take them. Few people will ever earn that much. I am one of the lucky few who does. I may be one of the worst signings in Premier League history, but I don’t care.” Indeed, the Holland defender spent a whopping four seasons on £40,000 a week at Stamford Bridge, happy to train and collect his wages despite the club wanting him out. There was even talk of him taking a private jet to train from his home in the Netherlands to make sure he didn’t breach that lucrative contract, which netted him nearly £10 million in exchange for just two league starts.

3) Bebe – 0 PL starts, 2 sub apps. £7.4 million. Manchester United is from Vitória de Guimaraes. 2010-2014)

Arguably the most notorious signing in United’s history in the Premier League, especially considering Sir Alex Ferguson later admitted he had never seen him play and took a recommendation from Carlos Queiroz, his former assistant. Bebe previously represented Portugal in the Homeless World Cup and it’s fair to say he was never at home at Old Trafford, where the winger played just 75 minutes of Premier League football in four years. The transfer was later investigated by Portuguese police as part of an anti-corruption investigation.

Bebe’s transfer to Manchester United was later investigated as part of an anti-corruption investigation

2) Danny Drinkwater – 5 PL starts, 7 sub apps. £35 million. Chelsea from Leicester. 2017-2022)

It is remarkable to consider that the England midfielder spent five years at Stamford Bridge, making just five Premier League starts, all in his first season. He spent his entire sophomore season blocked by Maurizio Sarri before a series of ill-fated loan spells saw him make more headlines for his actions off the pitch than on it, including allegations of headbutting a teammate and allegedly sustaining an ankle injury following an altercation in a nightclub. He has been without a club since his release from Chelsea in the summer and has expressed regret over “wasting” what should have been the best years of his career.

1) Ricky Alvarez – 0 PL starts, 0 sub apps. £9.5 million. Sunderland from Inter Milan. 2015)

The Argentine midfielder made 13 Premier League appearances on loan before his move was made permanent on the condition that Sunderland stay, which they did. Except Sunderland refused to honor that agreement after claiming a pre-existing injury in his left knee had caused a newly discovered problem in his right. Alvarez joined Sampdoria instead, but in 2017, and after a lengthy legal battle, Sunderland were ordered to pay Inter Milan a £9.5 million transfer fee for a player they did not own. To add to the bill, Alvarez successfully won a claim for £4.7 million in lost earnings. The club continued to fight their case, but eventually dropped out in 2021 after paying nearly £20 million in fees.

Sunderland were ordered to pay Inter Milan £9.5 million for Ricky Alvarez after a legal dispute

PS Papy Djilobodji would be a prime candidate for our list as Chelsea paid £4 million for the defender in 2015 and dropped him from their 25-man Premier League squad the following day. However, within 12 months they had doubled their money on the Senegalese without him ever playing a game for the club. The buyers? Sunderland. Why aren’t we surprised…